Final Fantasy XIV Getting an Official TTRPG

Square Enix leaked a pre-order page for Final Fantasy XIV TTRPG Starter Set on their online store on Wednesday morning before taking it down that afternoon and putting it back up again overnight.

The order page for the new TTRPG went live on Wednesday for around 6 hours before being taken down, but not before being archived via the Wayback Machine. It's likely the game was scheduled for announcement during the Letter from the Producer event on September 23 but was posted live by mistake. As of Thursday morning, the pre-order page is live again on the site along with an announcement page confirming a player and GM core rulebook along with an official preview page.

The new game will be based on the MMORPG video game Final Fantasy XIV, which currently has over 3 million active daily players available on PC, macOS, and PlayStation. This marks the first official adaptation of the popular and long-running Final Fantasy video game franchise to tabletop RPGs. From the product description before it was removed:

Based on the hit MMO Final Fantasy XIV, the FFXIV TTRPG is a tabletop roleplaying game that lets you experience Eorzea from a whole new perspective. Step into the shoes of a heroic adventurer or assume the game master's mantle, then cooperate to forge your own unique stories within the vast and exciting universe of Final Fantasy XIV. The Final Fantasy XIV TTRPG Starter Set comes with everything you need to dive into the game and includes both the Player Book and the Gamemaster Book. Gather your friends together to explore, battle, and roleplay--the only limits are your imagination, and the only goal is to have fun. Discover a realm of adventure reborn!

The Starter Set will include a Player Book, Gamemaster Book (including three scenarios tying into the FF14 main story), four pre-generated characters (Warrior, White Mage, Dragoon, and Black Mage), Rules Summary & Strategy Guide, encounter maps, character tokens, and ability markers. The set will also include custom numeric dice - 6d20 total (two red and one each of green, blue, black, and clear) with the Final Fantasy XIV logo in place of the 20 and 10d6 (four red, two each of blue and green, and one each of black and clear). No further information about the game system is available at this time.

The set is scheduled for a May 2024 release and is available for pre-order for $59.99.

Note: This article has been edited to update with new information as the pre-order page was taken down, then put back up again, then an official announcement and preview page released.

 

[Lupin]

Does anyone know whether there was ever a FF ttrpg in Japan?

I'm pretty sure the only Final Fantasy TTRPGs in existence prior to now were fanmade. There are certainly a few of those, though:
Final Fantasy TTRPG subreddit sticky post with a list of several fanmade FF TTRPGs.

Sword World rules the fantasy RPG roost over there, which is largely a D&D clone most likely made to legally sell D&D-inspired products like Record of Lodoss War (originally a D&D campaign "replay" by Group SNE—though I'm not clear on if it was actually transcribed or just written by the author of the books as though it had been—and printed in the magazine Comptiq) since D&D never really took off there. Maybe Square could've done the same early on if Sword World hadn't beaten them to the punch in 1989. Heck, the first-edition Sword World cover art is by beloved Square alum Yoshitaka Amano.

 

[UnplayedRanger]

2nd page confirms that there will be a corebook and a gm guide, no details on the rules system yet though:

FINAL FANTASY XIV TTRPG | SQUARE ENIX

The official site for FINAL FANTASY XIV TTRPG.

www.square-enix-shop.com

 

[Gradine]

I mean, we can at least tell that it uses D20s, so we can rule out a number of systems right there.

 

[Reynard]

I mean, we can at least tell that it uses D20s, so we can rule out a number of systems right there.

We don't know anything about how those d20s are used. The idea that a bunch of them are different colors suggests something with multiple successes (you get a regular action die and mayeb a spell die or an equipment die or whatever -- YZE with d20s?). But it could as easily be a PbtA hack that uses d20s. Who knows?

 

[Zehnseiter]

Not making it 5e is a huge mistake.

Why exactly ?

Its a tabletop rpg for Final Fantasy XIV. That is a MMO that is longer running than 5E and still has more then 3 million active players per day. I assume that the developers know their audience very well and know what they want or like in their game. They don't depend on D&D 5E to make a successful rpg as they already have a big enough customer base.

Also if they do the effort of actually make a P&P RPG as a side project (I doubt that is is more then that) for their game the they will probably try to actually emulate Final Fantasy XIV with it. I doubt that 5E as a rule engine does that well. You would need heavily rewrite a lot of stuff. MMOs don't do 5E linear Fighter/exponential Wizard class balance. Or long/short rest attrition mechanics, spell slots and so on...

 

[DarkCrisis]

About 30 years late IMO (FF peaked at X anyways) (FF4 for life), but hey pretty sweet. I might run it for a weekend or 2 for my group if it seems cool.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Has Nintendo released a TTRPG yet for Zelda? If they haven't, and if this FFXIV product is a success, I can easily see a TTRPG version of Breath of the Wild or The Ocarina of Time.

Or if Zelda is off-limits, give me a Chrono-Trigger TTRPG.

A TTRPG called Heroes of Cerulea is coming out soon and it Zelda with the serial # filed off.

HEROES OF CERULEA – Pixelated Dungeon Crawl Tabletop RPG

Explore dungeons, solve puzzles, fight monsters, gather keys, find items, and defeat bosses. Lo-fi art and rules; high playability.

www.kickstarter.com

 

[CleverNickName]

A TTRPG called Heroes of Cerulea is coming out soon and it Zelda with the serial # filed off.

HEROES OF CERULEA – Pixelated Dungeon Crawl Tabletop RPG

Explore dungeons, solve puzzles, fight monsters, gather keys, find items, and defeat bosses. Lo-fi art and rules; high playability.

www.kickstarter.com

Nice! It looks pretty close, yep. I'm still hopeful for an official licensed product that uses Nintendo's IP, but only because I'm a collector of Zelda (and other JRPG) stuff. I've been playing JRPG-flavored D&D for years.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Just wild to think that FF1 started off a sort of D&D game (don't sue us TSR!) (See also Zelda 1) and now it's come full circle back to it's TTRPG roots.

 

[timbannock]

Today lots of players would rather to use a precreated game system than learning from zero a new one.

People have been saying this since I started playing in 1985, and yet...